Race Report & Results: Anger Management Criterium

Traditional sunny California weather set the stage for California Bicycle Racing’s Anger Management Criterium in Dominguez Hills, which made for a perfect day of racing for all categories.

The Pro 1-3 race started out steady and then a few attacks started rolling off after about 10 minutes of racing.

One of the main moves contained Rudy Napolitano (Velo Pasadena) and Anthony Canevari (SoCalCycling.com Elite Team) who bridged across along with a few other teams that started to make there moves to get across. This made it a little easier to control the field when some of the teams that had numbers slowed it down near the front. Once the break started to get it together and find there rhythm they rolled up the road to get a 45 second gap. Most teams looked content to let it just play out, but some other riders were getting antsy.

Things started to get strung out for several laps at a time and then about 45 minutes in small groups were detaching themselves from the main pack and slowly getting away to create a large group of riders off the front of about 17 riders all chasing the main break.

An hour fifteen into the race the break lapped the main field with about 8 laps remaining with Rudy Napolitano and a few riders coming across first. About 5-10 seconds back was the remainder of the break with there heads down and charging hard to lap the field as well. A half lap later, the break finally came together and all riders were contained.

From that point the pace was set high from Surf City, Team Helen’s, Simple Green / Bike Religion among other teams setting a high tempo so there wouldn’t be any late attacks and made sure that they had their sprinters in place for what would be a field sprint.

As the teams were locking in there positions with a few corners to go, things were starting to get confusing as the field and the break were sprinting all together.

Coming out of the last corner the Simple Green / Bike Religion team had Ryan Schneider lined up for the win, with Aaron Wimberley (Team Helens) in second and Anthony Canevari (SoCalCycling.com Elite Team) taking 3rd. This is Ryan’s second win in a row for the early season races in January. It looks like Simple Green / Bike Religion has put together a good sprint team for 2013.

Check Back to SoCalCycling.com for a Photo Gallery from the Anger Management Criterium. Photos will be available soon at EchelonDesignPhoto.com.